Celebrating the Season with Cheri
"I always wanted that perfect Christmas. I wanted my house to look like it came straight out of a magazine with the gorgeous packages and matching ribbons and I tried to do that for years. Now I'm like, "Are you kidding? Where's the giftbags?"
It’s November and the holidays are officially upon us. That being said, what do the holidays mean to you? Family…chaos…good food?
I think all of the above (laughs). The holidays mean family and tradition and just bringing everyone together (that can be together) and that’s something I don’t like compromising on. It’s something that we’ve always done no matter what life has held at that time. Food. Definitely food. We come from an Italian family, so food is at the center (much to my body’s dismay). Chaos. There’s chaos in our family, with as many grandchildren as we have now – plus all our children – there is a lot of chaos, but I like it. Looking back on my life, I’m reminded of times of sadness and divorce and experiencing a different type of Christmas, so I welcome the current chaos with grandchildren and smiles and all of the craziness that Christmas can bring.
Absolutely. Well, since you brought up food, let me ask. Do you like cooking and/or baking? Do you do a lot of it around the holidays?
In my younger years, I used to do a lot of baking, but now (with my schedule today) I just buy a lot of sweets. This is such as busy time in the salon & spa industry, so I don’t get time to bake like I used to when the kids were little. We would do fudge and pizzelles and now I’m lucky enough to even order them (laughs), but I will say this. I don’t compromise on the cooking part [for the holidays]. I bring in the food and I take care of doing all of the cooking and the kids look forward to that.
We discussed cooking. Now let’s talk decorating! Do you decorate your house for fall or do you just wait for Christmas?
I do decorate for fall – I love Halloween. I used to decorate for Christmas a little later in the season, but now having to decorate all the stores, I try to get my house decorated as quick as possible. That way I can have a lot of time to enjoy it with my family.
Family time is always important – unless your debating candy corn. Which brings us to a very serious question: Candy corn – love it or hate it?
I love it.
I keep seeing this debate. It’s everywhere.
My husband hates it. I love it and Jayce (my grandson who lives with me) loves it too. My husband, Steve, is like, “I don’t know how you two eat that?!” Do you love it?
I do! I don’t understand how people can hate it.
My daughter-in-law loves it. In fact, come to think of it, we did get in that debate in my household, too (laughs)!
This has become a major debate – eventually it will be on the evening news. Alright, aside from candy corn, what’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?
My mom’s dressing. Years ago [on Tuscan Sun’s Facebook page], we did a “Cooking with Caroline” segment with her dressing. To me, it’s not Thanksgiving without it.
Needless to say, we will be requesting this recipe for the blog. Now, when you were younger, who was the premiere chef on Thanksgiving? Can we assume it was your mom? If so, did you all assist her in the kitchen?
Definitely my mom, and we did help. Of course at my age, we’ve been through many Thanksgivings, so now we all bring our dishes and come together. The past few years we have celebrated Thanksgiving at our house and I’m the premiere chef, though Mom adds her things and my sisters add their things. The kids have a lot of little children, so I don’t try to make them do anything because it’s tough on them right now running with all the little ones. Being the premiere chef, I try to do as much as I can by myself.
I can only imagine Thanksgiving at your house with all those kids and grandkids.
Let me tell you. I love it. Even during times of Covid, when everyone was still concerned about being inside, we made it work. We put multiple tables on my back porch and we still celebrated! We had the fire pit going and the heaters on and decorated as we always would. We weren’t going to let that stop us from being a family.
What is your favorite fall scent?
I would say my new candle scent is from Rewined Candles and it’s called Nog. That candle smells so good. We have that in the stores right now.
I haven’t smelled that one yet!
Oh, it’s so good. It smells just like eggnog. I also like an apple cider cinnamon scent. For Christmas, I love the Thymes Frasier Fir scent, which is also in our stores. That is my favorite for Christmas. Let me tell you – I don’t care – I can smell a million candles, and that candle is everything. It smells just like a Christmas tree. It’s great, and it’s like a real pine scent, not fake. It’s beautiful.
Are you a pumpkin girl? Are you one of those obsessive pumpkin spice people?
I like pumpkin, but I’m not a pumpkin spice latte drinker. I love pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies. So yes, I would say I am a pumpkin girl, but I’m not some crazo person (laughs). I don’t run around going, “Oh my God, this is my season!”
(Grabs an imaginary pencil and starts writing) Cheri is not crazo. Got it. (Laughs) When you were younger, what was on your television on Thanksgiving Day? Were you all a football family or were you all about the [Macy’s Thanksgiving Day] parade?
We always had on the parade and football. Personally, I always loved the dog show after the parade, you know, the Westminster dog show?
I forgot about that!
Yes, especially when the kids were little! They always looked forward to seeing those dogs! We like that and I, of course, was always busy cooking. I can’t say that I ever sit and watch football, because by the time you cook for the family and you clean up, there’s no time for football (laughs). Are you kidding? I’m so exhausted after every holiday. The next day I’m always like, “Thank God, it’s over!” I love it, but it’s exhausting. I make sure to have on comfy shoes the next day, cause my feet hurt (laughs).
And then comes the Christmas decorating! So, when do you start decorating for Christmas? I know you said that due to the holiday season at the spas, that you prefer to decorate sooner rather than later.
I wait until Thanksgiving is over and then I begin to decorate.
Did you cut down trees as a kid or did you go to the tree lot?
The lot at first and then my parents went to artificial trees. In regard to my own family, we’ve gone back and forth. I’ll never forget, when we had the twins, we cut down this beautiful live Christmas tree. Gannon was a baby and I looked over and all of the sudden his eyes were dripping with water! He was allergic to the pine. They were little, only around one and a half, and we had to take the tree to the patio and look at it from inside the house! He was so miserable, so we went with artificial trees for a while. Now he isn’t so bothered by it, thankfully. At the time, with twin boys, I didn’t really care [about the tree]. They would have torn it apart anyway (laughs).
You are not wrong! Okay, so you said you start decorating for Christmas after Thanksgiving, so once you’ve bought the tree, when do you decorate it? Immediately or do you wait until the house is decorated?
We do it at the same time. We get the tree up and go at it within the next day or that weekend. I remember when I was a little girl, you didn’t decorate that soon. You brought in your tree two weeks before Christmas and now, my God, it’s turned into something crazy where there are now six weeks of massive decorations instead of two. I remember when I was raising the kids and they were little, my girlfriend and I would look at Southern Living magazine and we loved it. She would call me and she would say, “Cheri, now don’t try to replicate Southern Living. You know it’s not achievable. It cannot be achieved with little kids and full time work.” Even though we would literally call each other to remind ourselves that the entire look was not achievable, we would still try to do a few things. Now I’m like, “What the heck was wrong with me?” (laughs), but back then I really wanted my house to look like Southern Living magazine. I absolutely loved it. The decor was so beautiful, especially the gorgeous packages with the matching ribbons, and I tried to do that for years. Now I’m like, “Are you kidding? Where’s the giftbags from Big Lots?” (laughs) Truly, though. I don’t know. Your life changes. That’s all I can say.
If it helps, I don’t think many people achieve the Southern Living decor dream, but we can certainly try! How many trees do you put up in your house?
Usually, two. Well, two or three.
And where do you put them?
We put one in the big family room and sometimes we’ll do a small one in the smaller family room and we put one in our hallway.
I love that. The more trees the better! Do you open any gifts on Christmas Eve?
Definitely. Christmas Eve is a big time for us. With this stage in my life, the kids and their little ones all come in Christmas Eve. It’s massive. We filmed it one year and the next year the kids said, “We have got to get more organized!” It was like a circus of packages! No one knew what anyone was getting and it was just crazy. So we tried to be more controlled last year. Christmas Day, on the other hand, is more low key. Now that we have a little one at home again, this will be his first Christmas where he knows Santa is coming, so Christmas Day will be fun again. Kids make Christmas.
They really do. Speaking of kids, when you were little, did you run straight to the presents in the morning, or did you have to wait for your parents to wake up?
We would run straight to the presents, and then my parents would mosey on in. As adults, we would get up at the crack of dawn because we would hear the kids getting up to see their packages. It was a really weird feeling when the kids weren’t little and they didn’t want to get up and open presents. I remember thinking, “Boy, this is sad,” because you remember them being little and excited, and then suddenly they could care less cause they were only getting money or just one big present. The little grandkids make my day now, because they still get excited.
What was your favorite Christmas gift you received as a child?
I loved Barbie. You couldn’t get better than Barbie, but then I got a cassette recorder with a Donny Osmond cassette. I remember playing “Puppy Love” over and over in my room. I think that is probably the one gift I will always remember. I thought it was the best present ever. (Laughs) A cassette recorder. That tells you how old I am!
I remember when CD players first came out and my mom and dad bought us one and it was the coolest thing ever!
Yes! It’s so funny. You go through life seeing all these new things coming out and you look back at all of the old things that you grew up with. Remember the big old video recorders that were massive and sat on your shoulder?
My dad used to always carry one!
Mine too! (Laughs) It’s crazy, right? Now everyone has one on their phone.
What isn’t on a cell phone any more? (Laughs) So, what was your tree topper when you were a kid?
Usually, a bow that my mom made. I still use bows to this day. They were always a big deal. We topped the trees with bows and also wrapped ribbon around them. They always looked so beautiful.
What a perfect segue! Do you love wrapping presents?
I used to love wrapping presents. Now, it’s so immense with so many grandchildren that I’m just searching for bags at this point. I do wrap a few, but I use bags for all the other ones. Do you remember the store Stone & Thomas?
Yes!
One of my first jobs was at Stone & Thomas. I was a gift wrapper – which was perfect because I enjoyed wrapping gifts. Back then, it was nice because all the stores would wrap gifts for you. You would buy your present and then walk back to the gift wrap station to get it wrapped. I really enjoyed being one of the gift-wrapping girls. Of course, that was a different time in my life (laughs).
I remember those days. I loved it, because I hate wrapping presents (laughs). What is your favorite Christmas carol?
“White Christmas.” It reminds me of my grandma. We lived in Atlanta, Georgia and my grandmother lived in West Virginia, and she had a player piano and she would call me and say, “I am playing “White Christmas” for you,” since we lived in Georgia and didn’t have snow. One time, she called and said, “All I want is for you guys to come home for Christmas,” so we came home for Christmas and she would play “White Christmas” on that player piano and we would sing together. I love “White Christmas” because of her.
I don’t even know your grandmother and I swear after hearing that story, I will always think of her when I hear that song. What is your favorite Christmas movie?
“Christmas Vacation.” I even bought Jayce a shirt this year that says, “It’s a beaut, Clark.” (Laughs) This is what’s funny – my family tells me that I am Clark Griswold. I want everything to be perfect, just like Clark. I want to have a perfect Christmas – the one poor Clark was always alluding to. That is the funniest movie to me because that really is me in a man form (laughs).
That tee shirt is amazing. Do they have one in my size? (Laughs) Alright, prepare yourself for some rapid fire questions.
Okay. Go!
First off, snow – love it or hate it?
I like snow; however, it makes it hard to run my businesses. It’s beautiful, but for my line of work, it’s tough with cancellations and trying to get our team safely to work. Let’s just say I used to love snow (laughs).
Hot chocolate or eggnog?
Hot chocolate.
Favorite Christmas scent: pine, cranberry, or peppermint?
Pine.
Real or fake tree?
Real. Definitely real.
Tree lights – white or multicolor?
Depends on the area. If it’s dressy, I do white. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve begun to enjoy multicolor.
Same question for outside lights?
White.
I feel like I already know the answer to this, but simple décor or all out Clark Griswold?
I’m in the middle. I prefer more simplicity now, but I still like the every room in the house to have a touch of Christmas. I love Christmas. One time, my son came in and looked around at all of the Christmas decor. Then he sarcastically said, “I don’t think you’re decorated enough.” I don’t know, maybe I am a bit like Clark Griswold (laughs).
Seems like you might lean that way.
Maybe a little (laughs).
Anything else you would like to add about the holidays?
Surround yourself with family, and by family, I mean all of those that you love. It could be parents and siblings or friends and neighbors. Celebrate with your own unique family. I have opened my home to tons of people, even some of my employees, who didn’t have somewhere to go. It’s important to enjoy the holidays with those you love and care for, and don’t ever feel bad if you can’t achieve that perfect Southern Living Christmas. There will be times you may not have the perfect tree, tons of gifts or a dining room full of people, and that’s okay. Looking back at my life, I’ve had happy Christmases surrounded by family and sad ones during my divorce, but you know what? I got through it, and if anyone is struggling this holiday season, know that you will get through it, too. I remember a Christmas when my kids had to go to my ex-husband’s house and that was the hardest Christmas for me. I remember putting Christmas Day out of my head and saying, “This isn’t Christmas for me. Our Christmas will be this weekend.” It was hard, but I got through it in the end. Make the best of things and don’t dwell when things don’t go your way or when things aren’t perfect. This will be our first Christmas without my dad, but you know what? We will gather together and make the best of it. In fact, I remember two years ago when Jayce was just an infant and my dad bent down and said, “I hope that I can see you running around in a little Christmas outfit next year.” And Christmas came the following year and he got to see him running around. Looking back, it brings a smile to my face. This Christmas he’s not going to be here, but I know he’ll be with us in spirit.
He‘ll be there.
He will. I don’t want to paint a picture-perfect holiday for people. Sometimes holidays can be sad. Commercials don’t help, either. Those things around the holidays always look so perfect and joyful and I don’t want anyone thinking I had years of perfect holidays. I don’t think anyone has, but if you have, count yourself very lucky (laughs).
So, I’ll end with this. To the lucky ones who end up having the perfect Southern Living Christmas and to the many (when all is said and done) who end up like Clark Griswold, I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and a very Merry Christmas.
Recipes
Perfect Pumpkin Cookies
Caroline's Thanksgiving Sausage Stuffing
